Encounters with the Past

BRILL eBooks, pp. 213–247

Abstract

Kasuga Wakamiya Onmatsuri is an important local festival celebrated every winter in Nara. While the festival has been analyzed from the point of view of its relations with religious institutions such as Kasuga Taisha and Kōfukuji, to date less attention has been paid to its historical transformations. Countering linear narratives that tend to portray it as largely unchanged since its inception, this chapter combines ethnography, historiography, and religious studies to provide a more multivocal analysis of the Onmatsuri. After an overview of its main celebrations, the chapter revisits the origins of the festival, describes the ontological multiplicity of its deities, and analyzes material elements that concur to its “fractal” features. Showing how these heterogeneous elements generate a diffuse “atmosphere of the past,” this study discusses practitioners’ accounts of ritual participation, as well as the relationship between ideological reconstructions of the past and material embodiments of religious symbols.

Authors 1

1. Andrea Giolai corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University , The Netherlands , Leiden

   Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands